by Deon Meyer
‘And Samuel stole the rifle?’
‘She said it could only be him, the rest of the time the Oom’s workroom was locked. So I phoned de Vos, but he never answered his phone. I sent letters too.’
‘You’re absolutely sure this Oom Henning owned a triple-two?’
‘Yes, Captain. A Sako, three years old. Receipt is on the farm, the licence, everything.’
‘Sollie, we think this Samuel could be the shooter. Solomon.’
‘Grote Griet, Captain.’
‘So you must tell me everything you know about him.’
‘But I really don’t know anything,’ said Sollie nervously, the anxiety that he might let them down almost audible on the line.
57
‘Aunty Jacky didn’t like the mannetjie. She said he was too skinny, you couldn’t trust such a skinny little man. And he drove a shiny car.’
‘A shiny car?’
‘That’s all she could tell me, Captain.’
‘Does she live all alone on the farm?’
‘No, Captain, there are farm people too. The aunty is still farming.’
‘How long was Samuel there?’
‘Two days, Captain.’
‘Where did he sleep?’
‘On the farm, Captain.’
‘Sollie, thank you very much. You’re a good detective …’
‘Jissie, Captain …’
‘But now I must talk to your SC.’
‘He’s standing right here, Captain. Thank you, Captain.’
‘Hello?’ said the station commander.
‘This is Benny Griessel, Leonard. We need your help badly now.’
‘Just say.’
‘How good are you people with fingerprints?’
‘We’re OK.’
‘The first thing is, send Sollie and your best fingerprint man back to Aunty Jacky. To the room the man slept in. Tell them to work very carefully, tell them we want every last print. And then they must race back and send them to us.’
‘We’ll do it.’
‘But while they are there, get Sollie to talk to everyone on the farm. Every single one. Everything they can remember about the man. Everything. Anything. His surname, his appearance, his clothes, his car. And send all the other people you can spare to Vosburg. House-to-house, anyone who might have seen the man. Maybe he filled up with petrol there, or had a meal, or something.’
‘We’ll do it.’
‘Leonard, our problem is time. You’ll have to be thorough, but you’ll have to be fast.’
‘We can be fast.’
They had to wait.
The word spread through the Hawks’ building like wildfire – there was hope, there might be a breakthrough – so that the IMC room was soon overflowing, and Colonel Nyathi had to ask everyone to please go and wait in the parade room, he would personally let them know if there was any news.
But Cupido made himself at home at Griessel’s side, as though he belonged there. And Bones Boshigo said, ‘Colonel, you might need someone who understands the art of bookkeeping,’ and planted himself, leaning against the wall.
Half past four came and went, without a word.
By five o’clock the IMC night shift arrived. The day shift did not want to leave. Van Wyk didn’t have the heart to force them, but Nyathi put his foot down, ‘We need you to be fully rested tomorrow, we don’t know if this will bear any fruit. Please.’
They dawdled, wasting time. It was twenty past five before the last one went home.
It was the hate that drove him now.
The sniper put the late Oom Henning Delport’s triple-two Sako rifle in the boot of the Audi, closed it carefully with his left hand and walked around to the driver’s door.
He was dressed in black – he might have to stand in the dark shadows of the trees beside the railway line, if it got late. If he couldn’t get a clean shot from the car.
He got into the silver car. The pain in his right hand was constant and sharp, especially when he didn’t keep the hand raised. He had gulped down a handful of headache pills at ten – he didn’t dare walk into a pharmacy with this wound and ask for anything stronger. He didn’t know whether Griessel knew that he’d been injured. He had lain down, between eleven and three, slept maybe forty minutes, waking often, panicked, bathed in sweat. No more painkillers. He had to be alert now.
For vengeance.
He switched the engine on, pressed the remote.
The garage door slid open.
Sergeant Sollie Barends, detective of the SAPS at Victoria West, went by the nickname of ‘Wingnut’, because of his very prominent ears.
But the eighty-seven-year-old Mrs Jaqueline Johanna Delport called him ‘seunie’ or my boy. She sat at the big kitchen table, busy peeling figs. ‘No, seunie, I told you: he was bad-tempered and he was skinny.’
‘Aunty, the police are looking for him down in the Cape. For terrible things. I’m asking Aunty please to think nicely about then.’
‘The old head isn’t so strong any more, seunie.’
‘Can Aunty remember what colour hair he had?’
‘Sort of mousy.’
‘Mousy brown or mousy blonde?’
‘Yes. Something like that.’
‘Mousy blonde?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Was he tall or was he short?’
‘Not too tall.’
‘But tall.’
‘Not too much.’
‘Taller than me?’
‘Stand up so I can see … Ja. You’re darem not too tall either.’
‘Did he have a moustache or a beard?’
‘No.’
‘Did he wear glasses?’
‘Rita,’ she called to one of the ageing maids standing at the stove, stirring a big pot full of boiling fig jam. ‘Did he wear glasses?’
‘No, mies, not that I can remember.’
‘No,’ said Jacky Delport, ‘he didn’t wear glasses.’
Sergeant Sollie sighed. ‘Aunty, his car …’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Aunty said it was shiny …’
‘Ja.’
‘Like in shiny silver?’
‘Rita, was it shiny silver?’
‘Ja, mies, like shiny-shiny.’
‘Like shiny-shiny,’ Jacky Delport repeated. ‘A flat one.’
‘A sports car?’
‘No, I wouldn’t say a sports car. But, you know, flattish.’
‘Diets,’ said Rita.
‘Diets, you say?’ asked Mrs Delport.
‘Ja, mies, Diets.’
‘Is that Deutsch?’ asked Sergeant Sollie hopefully.
‘Ja,’ said Rita.
‘A BMW?’
‘Is a BMW Diets?’
‘Ja.’
‘Then it could have been a BMW.’
‘Anything else, Aunty? Please.’
She thought for a long time before she asked, ‘What did the mannetjie do down there in the Cape?’
‘He shot policemen. Didn’t Aunty see that on the TV? The Solomon shooter …’
‘Does it look like there’s a TV here?’
‘No, Aunty, I’m just saying …’
‘There’s no signal here. Then Oom Henning said he wants to get a satellite dish. Six hundred rand a month. So we can sit and watch naked people swearing. Six hundred. I put my foot down.’
‘I understand, Aunty.’
She tossed another peeled fig into the big white enamel dish. As though it had suddenly occurred to her. ‘Shot policemen?’
‘Ja, Aunty. Shot one dead. Injured a whole lot of them too.’
‘What for?’
‘We don’t know.’
‘That’s not right, seunie.’
‘I know, Aunty.’
‘That’s not right. Policemen. Just making a living like everyone.’
‘Yes, Aunty.’
‘Rita …’
‘Ja, mies?’
‘Can you leave the jam for a little bit?’
‘Aunty …’ said Sollie Barends, the urgency of the case pressing on him.
‘Shush now, seunie,’ said Jacky Delport, and stood up with difficulty. ‘Rita is going out for a bit, I will stir the pot.’
‘Ja, mies.’
‘Shut the door.’
‘Ja, mies.’
‘And don’t you stand at the door and listen.’
‘No, mies.’
Mrs Delport went over to the stove, and stirred the boiling jam. ‘Come closer, seunie,’ she whispered, conspiratorially.
The sergeant crossed over to her side. ‘Lift your hand.’
‘Aunty?’
‘Lift your right hand, seunie.’
He raised his right hand. ‘Now say after me: I swear on my mother’s life …’
‘I swear on my mother’s life …’
‘What I am going to hear now, I will never repeat.’
The cellphone signal came and went. They heard the hiss of a vehicle, and Sergeant Sollie Barends’s voice over the loudspeaker.
‘The aunty said … swear on my mother’s … with Potgieter. For years … who it is—’
‘Sollie,’ said Griessel, and got no response. ‘Sollie, can you hear me?’
‘—kan.’
‘Sollie, stop. If you can hear, stop where there is signal.’
Seconds ticked past. Only the hiss.
‘He’s gone,’ said Mbali, deflated.
‘Captain, can you hear me now?’
‘Yes,’ said Griessel. ‘We couldn’t make out what you were saying.’
‘Oh. The aunty said … Are you still there?’
‘Yes, we can hear you.’
‘Captain, the aunty made me swear on my mother’s life I wouldn’t tell. But my mother will understand, it’s a matter of life and death.’
‘What did she say, Sollie?’
‘She said she and Oom Willem Potgieter from the farm next door have shared a love for years, that’s how she describes it. And when the mannetjie was here about the books, that night, Oom Pottie came to check, out of jealousy, she says. Scared she would cheat on him. With a young man. Are you still there?’
‘We’re here. We’re listening.’
‘And so he peeped in the window at the mannetjie who was still sitting and working. And he told her he knew the man. But she thought he was talking nonsense. But he said, no, not personally, but he knew him, and he was trouble.’
‘And?’
‘Now I’m driving over to the Oom.’
‘He didn’t tell her who the man is?’
‘No, Captain …’
‘Or how he knew him?’
‘No, Captain, she said she told him he was lying, he was just jealous, she didn’t want to hear.’
Sounds of frustration through the IMC room.
‘Sollie, you’d better get moving then,’ said Griessel. ‘As quickly as you can.’
58
The sniper parked under the tree, against the fence along the railway line.
The branches hung low over the Audi, the foliage dense and green.
He surveyed the area. The station was only twenty metres away, but the path led people to Ford Street. Nobody would see him.
He got out, walked around to the boot. Looked around again.
No eyes or attention on him. He opened the boot, took out the plastic bucket, snapped open the lid. He bent, scooped the mud out with his hand and smeared it over the number plate. Walked around to the front number plate, repeated the process. Put the bucket away in the boot. Made sure once again that there were no people around.
He wiped his hands clean on the cloth, picked the rifle up with his left hand, pressed the boot shut. The pain in his hand was agonising. He walked back, climbed quickly into the car. Pressed the barrel of the gun down into the foot well of the passenger seat.
Only then did he look up, at the entrance to the building.
Clean shot.
Not the Chana. Not what he had planned. The risk was higher. But it would only take one shot. And he knew the maze-like escape route off by heart.
The clock on the IMC wall ticked past six o’clock.
The team members sat ready at their computers. On the various screens, the databases waited for input: the national population register, the SAPS record centre interface, the vehicle registration system.
Cupido was talking. He was the only one. He was going on about how it would be someone from Silbersteins. He listed the reasons. They were the spider, right in the middle of this web. They connected Kotko and Sloet and Afrika and the shooter. They were in minerals and stuff. He was sure they did business up there in Vosburg too, what with the oil in the Karoo.
Nobody was listening to him.
Quarter past six.
The telephone remained silent.
Griessel dashed out to go and relieve himself. He knew the telephones would ring as soon as he left the room.
When he hurried back, at nineteen minutes past six, still nothing had happened.
At twenty-one minutes past six the phone rang in the stifling silence. ‘Hayi,’ Mbali said, jumping.
Griessel pressed the button.
‘Griessel.’
‘Captain, this is Sollie, Captain.’ Despite the static on the line they could hear the tone of his voice, the note of apology, as though he was conscious he was about to disappoint them all.
‘What have you got, Sollie?’
‘Captain, I don’t know if the Oom is so lekker in the head.’
‘How so, Sollie?’
‘Captain, he’s seventy-six, his glasses are as thick as the bottom of a Coke bottle … I think he must have seen wrong, it can’t be right.’
‘Please,’ whispered Mbali.
‘What does he say, Sollie?’
‘He says it’s that ou who got off in the Chev case.’
‘The Chev case?’
‘No, the Chev case. The cook. The woman who cooked food.’
‘The chef?’ asked Cupido loudly, he couldn’t help it.
‘That’s right. The cheffff,’ the sergeant over-corrected. ‘What was her name?’
‘The Steyn case?’ asked Griessel. ‘Estelle Steyn?’
‘That’s him, Captain. The Oom says it’s that mannetjie.’
Griessel’s mind wanted to discount what he’d just heard, it didn’t make any sense.
‘No, man,’ said Cupido disappointed. ‘It can’t be. He was a consultant. At KPMG.’
‘KPMG are CAs,’ said Bones. ‘Chartered accountants.’
‘Bookkeepers,’ said Mbali, and the hope and excitement penetrated her voice. ‘Auditors. What was his name?’
‘Brecht,’ said Griessel. ‘His first name?’
‘I’ll Google it quickly,’ said an IMC member.
‘He hates the police,’ said Mbali. ‘Very much.’
‘He was Eric or something,’ said Cupido, still sceptical.
‘He hates …’ said Griessel and looked at the spot where Fanie Fick usually sat. Fick the investigating officer in the Steyn case. Fick, with his hangdog tail-between-the-legs-bloodhound-eyes who was a daily reminder of the massive errors of that case.
‘Erik Brecht,’ said the one who had been Googling. ‘Erik Samuel Brecht.’
‘Where’s Fanie?’ asked Mbali.
‘At the Drunken Duck,’ said Griessel. Where Fick went every afternoon after work. Benny knew the place. In the past he had frequently drowned his own sorrows there.
And then he remembered the shooter’s email. Today I will shoot a Hawk. And it all fell into place. ‘Jissis!’ He sprang up and ran to the door, then realised he had no car, he had no idea where the flat-tyre BMW was. He stopped in his tracks. ‘Vaughn, he’s the Hawk who’s going to be shot. Come!’
Fick drank another Klipdrift and Coke. One last one.
They hadn’t even said thank you.
He was the one who had thought further, who had looked at de Vos’s re
cords from after his death. Noticed the calls. Looked up the number. He’d thought of all that.
But no ‘thank you’, no ‘good work, Fickie’, no ‘of course you must stay until we find out what’s going on’. No, just pack it up, stack it up, and bugger off. Go to bed, see you in the morning.
Because he was Fanie ‘Fucked’ Fick. No one really wanted to know him.
He hoped they didn’t find anything.
Erik Samuel Brecht checked his watch.
Just a few more minutes.
Captain Fanie Fick, the man he hated most in all the world, came out of that door at half past six, like clockwork. Every weekday. Half drunk. On his way home.
He pulled the rifle up with his good hand.
The pain didn’t bother him now.
He shoved the barrel out of the window.
Clean shot.
Sixty metres.
Then it would all be over.
Then he could get on with this meaningless life.
Cupido raced like a madman down Voortrekker Street, siren wailing, lights flashing. The traffic was mercifully light.
‘He missed me on purpose!’ yelled Griessel.
‘What?’
‘Last night. He missed me on purpose. So he could send the email. To me. But he didn’t mention my name to the media.’
‘Benny, I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘He had a plan, Vaughn. From the beginning. He had a fokken plan.’
He took out his Z88, held it in his hand.
Fick put his empty glass down solemnly.
Time to go home. To his wife. And his two daughters.
And the disappointment in their eyes.
Because he drank. Because he had gone rotten. Given up.
They never would understand. This albatross that was hung around his neck. He would never get rid of it as long as he was in the police. For the rest of his life, he would be the one who had fucked up the Steyn case. Put an innocent man through hell. Nobody remembered the inhuman pressure from Estelle Steyn’s parents, top management, and the media, nobody remembered the support and encouragement of the commanding officers, the forensic unit, the public prosecutors.